Rotary Table DRO Encoder (Part 1: Intro and Handwheel)

[@liamjohnz7896]

Great Work. You really know your craft

[@fna-wrightengineering]

Much appreciated!

[@brandonraggette]

This a really cool project. I had never heard of encoding a rotary table to display on a DRO. Hell yeah! May not have been feasible considering how deep a cut it would have needed to be, but had you considered trepanning some of that stock material so it didn't all end up as chips? Psyched for part two!

[@fna-wrightengineering]

Thanks! I'd never seen or heard of it either, but I figured, why not? TouchDRO has huge potential for this kind of stuff... One of the main reasons I have a TouchDRO adapter board on every one of my machines... Lathe, mill, shaper, surface grinder, and if I can figure out a way, my D-bit grinder will have one, too. And honestly, I hadn't thought about trepanning... Though you're right, it would've saved material. Depth wise, I could've gone in halfway, flipped it, and finished the trepan from the other side. Hindsight, and all that...

[@Likeaudio]

Love the little dro screen. What do you use for micro slim scales?

[@fna-wrightengineering]

Thanks! I've always thought it would be useful to be able to see what the operator sees, so I wanted to make sure I had my readout as part of my videos. The mill uses glass scales, similar to the kind that come with pretty much any import DRO setup. The lathe and the shaper both use capacitive scales, which are similar in operation to digital calipers I'm likely going to convert the shaper to the glass scales, so I can use the rotary table DRO on that machine, as well. Check out www.yuriystoys.com for more info about TouchDRO, and the commonly used scales.

[@Likeaudio]

@@fna-wrightengineering very good link. thank you for sharing!

[@fna-wrightengineering]

@@Likeaudio You're welcome!

[@Unl0gic]

Great video 👍 What type of rotary encoder is that?

[@fna-wrightengineering]

Thanks! I got it on Amazon, it's made by Calt. It's a 30mm ID hollow shaft encoder, 3600 pulses per revolution, with a push-pull output.

[@Unl0gic]

@@fna-wrightengineering Did it work with the touch DRO out of the box?

[@fna-wrightengineering]

@@Unl0gic I had to wire a connector to the end of the included harness, but that was all. 5V, gnd, A and B phases. No resistors required, or anything like that. The wire colors are labeled on the encoder, and the spec sheet for the TouchDRO board has the pinouts for the board itself. I used one of the connectors included with the board. It was pretty straightforward.

[@Unl0gic]

@@fna-wrightengineering thank you for all the information. Is this the same encoder as you bought? www.amazon.co.uk/CALT-Elevator-Encoder-Optical-Incremental/dp/B07G59FMPL

[@fna-wrightengineering]

@@Unl0gic You're welcome! The encoder I bought was this one: www.amazon.com/dp/B07G5SVPLD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_K4HZ3KQ6JRQP6XMP8HG0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 The one you linked has a different kind of output, and I'm honestly not sure whether it would work or not. I do know the one I linked does.